Squib of the Day: Ctrl+Alt+Delete

GNOME bug 130632 raises the idea of being able to put up the GNOME system monitor with a keystroke bound by default to Ctrl+Alt+Delete, as on Windows, so that users can kill applications and so on. The usability people say this is fine as long as the system monitor gains a prominent logout button. This has been raised against the system monitor as GNOME bug 143235. Perhaps, gentle reader, we should add the keystroke anyway and not wait indefinitely for the system monitor maintainers to add the button.

Update:GNOME bug 99335 is also asking for a keybinding to log out, and someone has suggested Ctrl+Alt+Delete. Perhaps the two could be fixed at a stroke.

20 thoughts on “Squib of the Day: Ctrl+Alt+Delete”

I think this is a bad idea, actually – the justification is that you’re copying Windows behaviour for the benefit of users who expect it, but you’re not actually copying Windows behaviour (on XP, at least). Ctrl-Alt-Delete on Windows doesn’t bring up the task manager – it brings up a window that among other things, has a button to bring up the task manager, as well as buttons for shutting down, locking the screen, logging out, etc.

Emphasizing that, Windows does *not* have a log out button on it’s task manager, such as you’re talking about adding to the Gnome equivalent.

@Thomas – my point is that the people requesting consistency with Windows are in this case actually suggesting it should behave *differently* from Windows.

It would be equally valid to say C-A-D should lock the screen, reboot the machine, shut down the machine, or change the user’s password. All of these are options presented to the user on Windows XP when they press C-A-D. So if you really want to do something in order to be consistent with Windows, you would have to bring up some kind of dialog box offering similar options. But personally I think that taking compatibility to that extent would be silly. The traditional meaning of C-A-D is to reboot the machine, and that the most sensible option is to bring up something similar to the popup you get when selecting “System -> Shutdown”…

@Simon: Actually, what you’re describing appears only if the welcome screen is disabled. That may be the default in Windows XP Professional (I’m not sure), but it’s definitely not the default with the Home edition, which is what most Windows users would be used to. And the task manager still has menu items for ‘log off’, ‘restart’, ‘run…’, etc. (they’re just not buttons).

In theory, this is a great idea, in practice, the gnome-system-monitor takes way too long to load. It’s much heavier than the windows task manager. The idea of a lighter window with some options (kill program, log off, start system-monitor, etc) sounds good though.

It’s also worth noting that the task manager runs when all else fails, unlike the gnome-system-monitor. It would be a huge improvement to have something that could run when metacity itself (and, dream on, X itself) fails.

Speaking from the experience of having migrated from windows and migrating windows users, the first thing that I have to do is make it easy to bring up the system monitor, because telling people “oh, you know, just open up a terminal and type xkill” really doesn’t do linux justice.

As to using “CAD”, I can’t see any reason not to use that key-combo, and can think of two to use it: it’s well known, (everybody seems to know it) and it’s not used by any programs or window managers that I know of.

In terms of what to actually do when you hit it, I personally would love it if it (instantly :) opened a lightweight process manager and system resource viewer (tabbed) with a big honking button at the top that takes you to the current gnome system manager, but which is really simple itself Eg:

Also, the comments have brought up a good point: the system monitor should have a (session management) tab that is basically the current “log out/shutdown/etc” dialogue. If it also included the stuff that’s currently in the “Preferences->Sessions” menu, so much the more awesome.

@David – I didn’t realise that – XP Pro is the only Windows version I have access to. So, C-A-D doesn’t even behave consistently on Windows?

I’d question that XP home is what most users are familiar with – that depends on whether we’re dealing with home users or companies. I don’t know the answer to that, but obviously it makes some difference.